When I was small the word ‘block’ meant something square. They were the blocks I played with, made of wood with raised lettering on their sides. Mention of walking round the block at first confused me until it was explained that the block meant an area of land bounded around by a road. Though the road on which we lived followed an oblong loop, I was given to understand that we lived on a block and soon set out to explore it.
Being quite young I knew roads mostly from the back seat of our motor car. Walking it was an unknown but I had no fear of this – nor did my parents, for within the two kilometres of its perimeter lived far more pine trees than people. I knew that if I followed the road I would be safe and that it would bring me home. Besides, I was taking our poodle with me.
The road was an irregular oblong: from our home I walked up to the top of our street then took a hairpin bend and continued up a slight incline. By then I had walked half a kilometre and seen only two houses: both I and my dog were enjoying the walk. That soon ended.
At the open gates of the third house was a dog. A dog fierce or rabid? No, a lusty young Labrador pup displaying what my innocence did not understand. The object of his attention was my black poodle. Whatever I did I could not stop him from harassing her: had he attacked I would not have been so bewildered, but the strange movements he tried to make with my dog made no sense to me. I panicked and, as there was no one near, ran home, poodle at my heels – but the frisky thing followed us right into our living room. There I pointed at him (going though most strange motions) and said, “Mom, Dad – why won’t he leave us alone?”
My parents took care of the situation but said no more. I remained both ignorant and frightened of “that dog” on the road above and did not venture further than the first two houses of the block or took other walking routes and left the block unexplored.
As I grew two changes occurred. The first was that I learnt about dogs and their doggy ways. The second was that, on the road above where lived the Labrador which held now no terror for me, there appeared a small white monument to the hedge which ran in part along this hilltop. Why a hedge needed a monument was explained by telling me that it had been planted more than three hundred years ago by a famous settler in order to keep cattle in and natives out. Curiosity led me once more to this upper road to see what was so special about this hedge.
It still grew, sprawling and penetrating the fences of any property in its vicinity. I soon lost interest, though, in its vegetation when two great white gate posts further up the road took my eye. They stood upon the crest of the hill and belonged to ‘Admiralty House’, as was evidenced by the wrought iron lettering with crowns of red and gold above. I never saw the house, so well hedged were the grounds, nor did I consider why the Admiral’s house was so far from the sea. He must have had a splendid view of it.
Beyond these gates the road sloped down slightly for about half a kilometre then matched the hairpin at the other end of the block, turning sharply down at the end of this upper stretch. Along this length one other house had been built; the remainder of the land was what was referred to as bundu. No paths had been made through it because those who went on foot in this area, a few servants and “garden boys”, would use the long and narrow servitude that connected the lower road of the block to the upper at its halfway stage, a sort of official short cut across the block. Though convenient, I saw it as a shortcut and did not consider using it. I enjoyed taking the road, both sides of which were crowded and overgrown by heavy foliage. Warm, decomposing pine needles added aroma, and viscous pine sap oozed temptingly. The delicate asparagus ferns belied their appearance and tore at you if too near, but the spiky brambles gave a lovely black berry, provided you were careful. In the pine tops squirrels ‘chuk-chuk-chuk-cheed’ and dropped a brown shower as they whittled the cones.
The pines took my gaze to their tall leaning tops which arched the road. It was not their majesty I admired but rather the heavy, sticky cone which they would drop, far too infrequently, to the road beneath. Deep within its wooden armour the ‘dennebol’ held a delicious nut. Only hard, persistent hammering would break the ‘bol’ apart and reveal the oval nut beneath its hard covering. To open it required a pianist’s touch: a hard hammer would fracture the soft wood casing and mash the sliver of nut wrapped in a brown husk as light as the wind. So delicious were these nuts that I often wished that tall stone pines with their stately tops grew in our property, not the chaotic cluster variety whose cones only squirrels could enjoy.
Of the cluster species, though, one at the end of the upper road had grown to a tremendous height. Like a monolithic beast which grows teeth that it later discards, it had shot out limbs now bleached and broken off at random. But half way up its trunk, a set of heavy branches radiated, then came together in a massive ball of needles which I so feared would fall on me passing below that I sped up when passing beneath.
The upper end of this block ended soon after this tower. Here the road hairpinned and sloped down the hill, opening up a great view which had been blocked by the wilds of the plots. On this lower stretch were a few homes, hidden by hedges. One enormous house of fourteen bedrooms (by report) had a garden to match. It frustrated me to catch only glimpses of beautifully smooth lawns easing around the elegant trees but never a person: the larger the house, the less likely a sign of life. To find that I needed to walk a short distance further to a fork in the road, take the upper tine and reach my home.
Over time my enjoyment of the walk changed. When small I had wished that the giant grey rocks that crowned the upper stretch stood in our property. Later they impressed upon me the transitory nature of our homes and, more importantly, the realisation that we lived on a hill as much as a suburb.
My fondness of the walk led to invitations to friends to accompany me. It was my grandfather’s delight, too, and while he lived with us he would walk the block daily and talk to any of the African gardeners on the properties along the road. He had grown up speaking their language and would relax entirely in conversation with them. It was only these interludes which could delay his pace and he never took our dog (which was now old and slow) as he did not like to be held back by managing her and shortening the conversation.
When older, I began to use the block as a running loop. Apart from getting to know the dogs, which came out to put an extra spurt to my pace, it enabled me to catch up with what was happening in the immediate neighbourhood. Normally these developments were gateway alterations or even the installation of a traffic sign; then it turned into something quite different.
Disease was the first cause for this change. In the suburbs below an unidentified virus had attacked and devastated the species of hedge commonly grown to make homes more private. This apparently waterborne disease had initially not affected the hedges of houses on the hilltop, but in time it did. The leaves curled and browned: the final bare sticks of high hedges were not long after. Houses never seen before were revealed. This was not the only change. For many years certain plots had never been touched, seen as too far from the hub or too large to build a home upon. But now they were being bought, cleared, and readied by bulldozers. When their drone ceased men were heard discussing plans.
My doubt that this area of hillside can be called a block has gone. When straight walls and driveways are built, wind-curved branches have to fall. As it becomes the domain of house and fence, the fact that we live on a block is borne out. My walk is still oblong, but the experience is square.
Such vivid imagery … I can smell the pines and almost touch the sticky sap that oozes from the trunks that you have described. Very evocative! Loved this piece.